I hope you had a good birthday. Next year you should tell everyone. I don't know what this community would do without you, and I think we'd all be grateful for the chance to show you.

Thanks for being here for all the crazy people. Even if all you did for Metro City was keep a bunch of superpowered hooligans sane and happy, you'd be doing more than most people. I hope you had the birthday you deserve.

-Nick

He waggled it in front of his face, its presence sparking thoughts and mocking his ignorance. It was from Nick... but where was she? It didn't have a return address, either. And, now that he finally started thinking about it, he hadn't really seen her in since Black Thursday, even though the place had long since been patched up. Normally, he'd just write it off as someone finding a new bar to drink in. But not Nick. It wasn't like her.

It wasn't like her at all.

Shock of shocks, Boreas was there that night. That was good; he knew her about as well as anyone. Luke, not realizing the grand import of still holding the card, walked over to the super and asked directly, "Seen Nicki lately?"

On his third beer and feeling it (alcohol tolerance good - zero body fat bad), Boreas huff'd air out of his nose.

"Short answer, no. Long answer, zany craziness." He made a circular "zany craziness" gesture with both hands and an abudance of flailing fingers.

"You are a trustworthy Luke O'Houlihan, so I'm going to give you my version of events, no word of which I have breathed to even my closest fellows in the super community. Ready? Ready?" He raised his eyebrows, pulling up his mask slightly in the process. He really hoped Luke was ready.

"She killed a dude. On Black Thursday. We weren't there when it happened - she was laying poison blood traps, which sounds like something out of Dungeons & Dragons but isn't, and it looks to me like one did exactly the thing it was supposed to do, exactly to who we wanted to off. I killed a dude. Rick killed a dude. Sable killed a dude. We're all fine, but I suspect that we've all done it before and are kind of used to it - there was a gruesome one where Sable held a dude down on a live grenade, but that was their fault, and fuck 'em, seriously. But Nick? Nick is I guess pretty bent out of shape about it."

He leaned back. "I don't have the full story about it. I will probably hero some cops into letting me know the gory details before I show up at Nick's and be all like 'bitch, this is not okay.' And I have to show up, because every time I hint that I want to see her, she stonewalls me. She's impossible to reach right now. It pisses me off." Boreas didn't care to explain to Luke why it specifically pissed him off that he hadn't seen one of the three people who knew his real name since the very day he told her it. He thought they'd all become closer as heroes - instead, Taryn quit, Nick was playing ridiculous and stupid games, and he hadn't seen much of Rick either.

So she killed someone. That was a big deal. Her not wanting to see people was understandable, as she was incredibly shy on the best of days. He almost asked if he'd tried everything, but realizing it was Nick, even if he hadn't, she would have cut off anything he hadn't thought of.

But, he'd get to her. The windbag needed his help in the short term.

On top of that, he didn't even need to say it to himself: of course they had their reasons for killing those guys and of course they all deserved it. It was Nick. It was Boreas, too; he knew they would come out smelling like roses at the end of this tunnel of shit.

Boreas shrugged with one shoulder, grimacing. "I have killed over two dozen people, Luke," he said flatly. "And broken lots of bones and required people to get a lot of stitches. The arrows in the quivers aren't for show, especially the half of them that have steel blades on the tips." He gestured to the two-compartmented quiver built into the back of his costume between his back and his cape and the smaller one-compartmented quiver slung at his side. "It does actually get easier," he continued with dark humor. "They don't tell you that part. Maybe that's only when you're doing it on the side of good. And you're really, really good at it."

"Anyway, yeah. I sweat and bleed for this fucking town. They had better goddamn thank me." All Boreas ever asked for was recognition, which he got. And then he asked for more, because he thought he was awesome.

He cleared his throat. "Nick," he said. "I don't know what to do about her. I remember my first kill - you remember my first kill. Was I that bad, this much after? No. I was ready to do it again because it was the right thing to do. I don't believe that killing is wrong as long as you're killing the right people." Boreas had even met the daughter of the first person he killed - interesting that Luke would bring her up, he thought.

"You're really comparing your temperament to Nick's. Really," Luke said. "Think about what you just said. Think about what you know about Nick. Then come back to me and tell me what you've learned."

Luke didn't think Boreas was a murderer, far from. He believed him when he said it was the right thing to do. And he'd believe it from Nick, too, if she said it. He just knew that if there's anyone who'd bounce back from ANY trauma, it'd be Boreas.

"I didn't say I'm surprised," Boreas said, conversationally. "I said I don't know what to do. I'm a solipsist. Nick is an opaque and unknowable Other." The capital "o" was particularly evident. "I should talk to her, is what I should do. She has been barely answering texts, and calls not at all - even invitations to my goddamn birthday party. I had to text it to her."

"Well, all I can think of for you to do right now," he said, leaning casually on the bar, "is fret and worry and hope your friend rejoins the wider world again soon. 'Bout all any of us can do unless we've got an address and a REAL big desire to butt into her life."

For now, that was the answer. It wasn't one he LIKED, but it was the only one he had.

The day that Sable visited O'Houlihan's for the first time, it was destroyed. She hoped that things wouldn't end quite as poorly this time. She would have put it off even longer, but she hadn't seen or really heard from Nick since leaving the hospital. Maybe she would be here.

Sable scanned the room. Nick was not there, but Boreas was. Oh, and the bartender was that guy she met with Beatrix. Luke O'Houlihan, wasn't it? She supposed that avoiding the owner of the place would have been too much to hope for. Well, maybe Boreas would know whether Nick was all right. She walked over.

"Hello, Boreas. Am I intruding?"

--------------------

"And they said that I'm not actually technically human. I'm about as far-removed as...maybe a Neanderthal. And they told me that he rewrote some of my junk DNA with a recognizable pattern that he uses in a lot of his work. He signed me."

Boreas shrugged ineloquently. "Muh," he said. "Sable, d'you know Papa O'Houlihan? He assures me he has no superpowers. I think he's just super." At super he pumped his arm enthusiastically across his chest with a cheery thumbs-up.

He picked up his half-full beer, chugged it in a few manful gulps, slammed the bottle down on the counter, and wiped his chin. "Things." Truer words, Wind-Wielder.